Release My Soul
by lalunaticscribe
Summary: "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you." AU. Sequel to The Becoming of Things. More than one ghost was left on Cybertron, as the Autobots and Decepticons will find. Those who discard the past has no past - and no future. Ensemble cast, Alpha Trion. PILOT
1. Manifest Destiny

_**Release My Soul**_

_**An LLS Production**_

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><p><strong>Prologue: Manifest Destiny<strong>

"_I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself."  
>– Charlotte Brontë, <em>Jane Eyre

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><p>Reader, I welcome you. If you have found this tale at last, then one of us are freed, at least. I have masqueraded as this human boy, this alien soldier who has yet to be jaded by war and who still holds the greatest of inspirations in a spark untimely snuffed out. Neither know nor care for the process by which I have manifested in this alien; weakened shell of flesh and cells it has become now that the soul has departed for an undiscovered country. For its fragility has stolen one of the best persons I shall ever have the company of, and in turn has hurt his friend very deeply.<p>

Where to begin my tale, I ponder. Time is unusual in that it is relative, at least that is what I remember one of my multiple brothers saying. Come to think of it, I can no longer remember the youngest of us. The seventh, though, was far too indelible in my mind; Megatronus Prime was my brother and my killer. It was many æons thence, dear reader; do not grieve for me. However, discussing my brothers have brought up that point at which I shall begin the tale, one that stretches, perhaps, the span of time itself.

As I am blessed with the name of Alpha Trion, I write this as the last will and testament of Nathan Zimmerman. By some incredible, astounding fate, two specimens of different species across the spheres of the Well of All Sparks have met, have survived, and have finally died.

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><p>I come from Cybertron, a planet entirely of metalloid and mechanics. Until we took to the stars, there had been not a glyph for organic life; we too, were once as ignorant as the organics certain followers of another brother decried as inferior. Of a universe of sentients, Cybertron was entirely populated by mechanoid life, ruled by what was referred to as the Dynasty of Primes. Prima is the oldest and wisest amongst Primes, bearer of the Matrix of Leadership and the Star Saber.<p>

That much you might know, dear reader – since it is more likely that you are part of the soldier contingent Nathan belonged in, who are in touch with my people – but they are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. The true wisdom of Prima lay in the insight of our eldest's black optics, damaged in the last battle of true destruction against creation and its children. If only I could relate to you how vital and how tragic it had been! To speak, or etch, the name of the Unmaker, though, is dangerous amongst we of the Original Thirteen; the adversary knows, but even that which is destruction could only bow to the insight that even the Creator does not know; such is Prima.

"I have though about placing my spark elsewhere, Alpha Trion," declared Prima one day. Such declarations were not unusual from Prima; one possessed of such foresight, now deprived of the use of optics as my brother had been, must seek alternatives. The _furor poeticus _that overtook Prima saw and reached for the stars, far more than any of us could dream even with our sight.

"And what would you use that for?" I asked.

"This," Prima waved to the frame he used, that once shone as a star. "The frame we are granted upon creation are finite, as any other shall be. It shall present an interesting dilemma, to see if I can transplant my spark into an empty frame, and still function as expected. Perhaps, then the taint need not follow me. Perhaps that shall be the recipe for immortality; a strange, but true form."

Specialised sensors had another of us, Solus Prime, developed to cure Prima, to detect the carbon and hydrogen and oxygen about open space and the rest of the universe and assist our helpless brother. Yet, Prima's black optics were haunting in their terrible reminder of our mortality. They stood blank and empty, devoid of the light that Prima's optics once held. Yes, I supposed, transferring a spark might be possible. How, could always be worked out later in the far future.

So I believed, even as Prima was dead, I was bleeding the lifeblood on the floor of the Hall of Records, and Megatronus had left to raze Simfur and, by extension, the rest of the Dynasty, to ashes. I considered that mad scheme of Prima's devising, and for once I felt that which must have hounded Prima in the darkness. True, sparks could not normally survive... the desperation to live overrode all thoughts of that.

In my hand I wielded the artefact known as the Quill. The Covenant I had sealed in the Hall of Records upon which I had instituted my reign as Prime of another city beside Simfur, as I knew Alchemist Prime and Quintus Prime would have done with their own precious artefacts.

The Covenant could not save me here, either way, but as I dipped the Quill into my own energon, I found myself heedless of that. The Cyberglyphs of my Name shimmered, filling the scratches I made by a case of slates with the great artefact. The quill shall triumph over arms this day.

I vented slightly, feeling my consciousness shift and, in a rare fit of inspiration, I hid the Quill with the case that now bore my name. I watched the precious reality-dictating stylus drop into the depths of the Iacon Hall of Records as I dropped into the dark of stasis.

I awoke to see Vector Prime falling before my discarded frame. Living as part of the Iacon Hall of Records was surprisingly curious a sensation.

"Vector!" I called. "Vector Prime!"

The guardian of time and space was lost in his grievances, such that his bellow of pain-filled sorrow echoed in the lonely depths of the hall. "Alpha Trion... Trion, beloved brother. Be at peace now. Know that I will slay Megatronus for this."

"Vector, it's me!" I entreated. "Vector, please! Hear me!"

He could not hear me; as a ghost, I watched Vector Prime haul my frame out, and leave me here in the heart of the Hall of Records æons ago. Such was the tale by which I have been left in the Iacon Hall of Records.

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><p><em>'Good morning.'<em>

Barely klicks after my impromptu return to the Hall of Records by a kindly officer, and Prima had arrived. Her helm shaped to taper off at the centre of her faceplate, her very visage itself resembled some organic species of flight-capable creature, sharp of eye and gold of plumage, brilliant and golden as the star that now provided energy to our planet. They called Prima the Twin Horizons sometimes; dawn of light and darkness both heralded in her wake.

'_Welcome back, Alpha Trion,_' Prima intoned. '_See Cybertron now; how it welcomes visitors of another world!_'

'_Prima? Another world? We are dead, could it be..._'

Below us, at the ground of the Hall of Records, a bare mechling and a fleshy alien were about. The organic was climbing a movable staircase, and the youngling was leaving with a yell in some unusual language of glottal stops.

'_Prima,_' I answered. '_How are you alive? Better yet, how am I alive?'_

'_We are not, Trion,_' Prima answered. '_Of the Original Thirteen, now only Vector lives. Megatronus Prime and I have sacrificed ourselves to create light for Cybertron.'_

I would have vented, had I still vents. The traitorous Megatronus Prime, and Prima having survived? Having created light for Cybertron?

'_It is a curious thing,_' Prima imparted. The blank optics were directed down towards the lone alien, who did not seem to have noticed us.

'_What is?_'

'_The coincidence of deaths, of course._'

"Oh my," I said as he fell, seeing the giant staircase roll away and take his lifeline with it. Just like he could not hear me again, I reflected as I watched the alien life-form smash onto the same spot where I bled to death. Red liquid stained the exact spot where I had bled to death, millennia before, and where I had uploaded myself into an unsuspecting data folder attached to a bookish Autobot who had just returned me to my demesne. Red liquid continued to stain the ground as the hand relaxed, quietly.

So this is how its life ends. I felt the nanites streaming along, and considered the vestiges of twitching little servos and pedes. An alien so like us! And yet so unlike us... but there were electronic additives in his blood, compatible to transfer myself and find help for him...

'_He will not need the body when he is dead,_' Prima mused. '_In a while._'

There was a chance, then.

I made my choice, and I used his voice to summon help in the form of the careless friend that left him to die.

"Help...! Help...!"

Here is the tomb of Alpha Trion. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.

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><p><em><strong>Please review, so that I know if this is a good pilot to explore! Critiquez, s'il vous plaît!<strong>_


	2. Ad Hominem

_**Release My Soul**_

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><p><strong>I: Ad Hominem<strong>

Reader, here I must confess that the circumstances leading to our meeting are unknown to me. To that, end, I have included Nathan's account of how he had arrived in a newly revived Cybertron, following that, and after awakening in the medical repair bay with a medic dyed in chartreuse.

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><p>Right, where to start... Maybe from where the crazy alien ancestors decided to go blow up the home planet? Or when that shard alien artefact started bleeding all over the vault? Or maybe when we found out that yes, the Transformers (CybertroniansAutobots/bots) could up and take refuge in computerised implants?

One thing for sure; it started when the 1LT – First Lieutenant, _alright_ – designated Jazz AKA Meister – 'Also Known As', you _know_ the acronym! – metaphorically 'came back' in August 2008 wrapped in a civilian's body, with intelligence burgled from known former Sector Seven Chief Field Agent Seymour Simmons in NY – New York, fine! – and having toppled Hotchkiss and Gould Securities after digging up evidence of a Decepticon fifth column- _subversive group of human collaborators_ scattered all over the US and possibly the world. No, wait; we have evidence of Decepticon collaboration in the Serengeti area.

I'm getting off topic.

The real cause of this must be Autobot-civilian interaction case #03; the original owner of the body Jazz was in. After meeting her, the Autobots picked up Monopoly. She also gave the Autobots ideas about showing off their planet, and even stopped the alien civil war. We have no idea _how_, since all the 'bots clammed up about the details, but they gave her the credit and a 21-gun salute with full posthumous honours. The Autobots got the idea of showing off the planet, since we were apparently so nice to them. Hence the party of NEST operatives on the planet. Unfortunately, logistics were taking a while to administer... I just read what I wrote, and even I can't believe this is my life. Truth is really stranger than fiction sometimes.

...the old guy, Alpha Trion? He just chewed me out for not sticking to the point.

The problems we faced, not only with Decepticon opposition – whom we can't shoot – was gravity, the Cybertronian phenomenon called strongly acidic rain, and water. Transport was glaringly missing from the list, because they had a really smart guy who figured out some technology called a space bridge. The mechanics behind it were, and I quote from the old mech, 'to connect two points in space as to render them virtually next to each other, to cross vast distances between known points in space, the mechanics of which are not addressed within your human sciences.'

It was paraphrased, and originally insulting, but he held back. We had to give him some credit.

The strongly acidic rain apparently resolved itself, and we knew that as Jazz ran through the space bridge, shouting about how the rain managed to clear itself. Gravity had also seemed to change on the alien planet, if the excited chatter was anything to go by, gravity on Cybertron reasserted to around ten Newtons per second squared – ergo, only Decepticon opposition was in the way now. Only until the White House reported in with the news of a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction _and_ Congressional Gold Medal for Dahlia Su, did the Decepticons give in.

One way to net the highest posthumous civilian honours of America; when you find yourself with an alien guest, start compiling a diary and research on the cultural and life differences between humans and aliens. If you're dismantling intelligence, also include a metaphorical 'by the way, I got all that from the San Fran Library'. To rub it in further, bring a violin to string with your enemy's insides. Nowadays, NEST security officers open their lessons with 'a civilian managed to gather classified intel with a library card, kill two Decepticons – smaller ones – bare-handed, dismantle a Decepticon fifth column on American soil, and still get a valued operative to NEST on her terms. You guys better top her.' One of those things that just had to be seen to be believed; the twin medals being taken through an alien gateway to a planet across the universe to be interred with Dahlia Su, the greatest NEST security SNAFU and shame since inception.

The weirdest part is, when the Cybertronian neutral designated as Prima disappeared with the Fallen, and there was a hurried alliance and mad scramble to get back to Cybertron... and when the dust had settled, the civil war was over, peace negotiations were starting, and now Megatron awaited Optimus Prime and a small contingent of NEST soldiers bearing the precious honours. I never thought that sentence was possible.

"Did they have to come along?" the bucket-head sneered.

"She was human, too," Optimus answered neutrally. Both mechs turned to regard the sun that hung over Cybertron, lighting up the repairing ruins of a fallen city many times larger than I could imagine. Even ruined, the city was beautiful enough to make my lungs heave.

Wait, that was the gravity.

A vent, and Megatron stepped aside. "Fine."

"The ceremony is in Iacon," Optimus chipped in.

Megatron nodded, but said nothing.

"Are we missing something?" Major Lennox asked, muffled by the mask that was standard issue with the five-man team with the medals.

"There has been security concerns raised over bringing humans into Simfur," Optimus intoned. "The honours will thus be displayed in the de facto capital."

"Why are there two capitals on the planet?" Chief Master Sergeant Epps demanded.

A moment of silence. "Simfur lay buried under klicks of metal and metallic sand for millennia. Only recently had it been dug up, and by then to move all of Iacon's operations into Simfur would be a foolish endeavour. Simfur was thus designated a protected heritage zone and a religious capital, supposedly over which the Prime presided."

"Like Rome and the Vatican," Lennox picked up. "Did any of them pull a Prisoner of the Vatican thing?"

"That would not have been feasible, since the Dynasty fell into disarray following the demise of Nova Prime from overwork and Nominus Prime was supposedly assassinated."

"How come we never hear about those exciting stories?" Epps exclaimed.

Optimus Prime actually looked away. "Only P- Dahlia was interested in them."

"No point in it," Sideswipe muttered. "Boring old coots off-lining each other for a few shanix anyway..."

A foot nudged Sideswipe in his alt-mode, and Optimus Prime kept a straight face as he marched away. Lennox and Epps stared as the Autobot leader marched off. "Did he just..." the Major turned to me.

"Yes, sir."

"Fragger," Sideswipe scowled. "Great, we delivered the medals, now what?"

"It's actually a secret, since neither Optimus nor Megatron have released a signal yet," Major Lennox commented. "Since we have civilians dead and that mess with Dahlia Su, they thought that humans should be witnessing the procedure. Hence Ironhide's bad mood," he added as Ironhide seemingly stormed off suddenly.

"Come along already!" Ironhide yelled.

"Complicated," Epps and I nodded. What was it Grammy said? Creating was hard?

"I find myself in need of returning a datapad," Prowl, the rulebook-wielding Autobot XO, suddenly said. "I will be along shortly, Ironhide."

"Datapad? Here? Now?" Sideswipe complained. "Really? C'mon, Baby Face."

"What? Huh?" I was swept along as Sideswipe started to follow Prowl. "Return?"

"The Iacon Hall of Records," Prowl added, transforming with Sideswipe before the pair drove off. "If it was still standing..."

The Iacon Hall of Records, it turned out, was still standing. Which said a lot about it, if the library could survive a civil war and the planet's death. Prowl arrived at the relatively large – for a human – entrance, to push a datapad through what looked like a return slot.

Beside the slot, a screen opened with a few of the Cybertronian glyphs patterned on it. Sideswipe was the first to start laughing, rolling into the Hall. "Ten _million_ shanix?! Prowl's a delinquent! Ha!"

I had no idea about the conversion of shanix to USD, but unless there was some real inflation going on, ten million for anything in library fines must be pretty astronomical. The Hall was pretty automated, and they didn't really have books as much as plates upon plates upon what looked like iPads in their size, stacked up and labelled with what was probably subjects and authors and dates. Yeah, it was a large... library.

Sideswipe dropped me off, rolling up what looked like a large movable staircase as Prowl's sirens echoed. "Right. You stay there."

"Side- Wait, Sides!" I called as Sideswipe transformed and doubled back to turn a sharp left and lead Prowl on. "Dammit..."

The movable stairs were the types which looked ridiculously small, for mechs in their size. Then again, the Decepticons had some downright tiny members, as their medic Scalpel proved. Maybe librarians were tiny too. The staircase was big, and probably heavy too, I thought as I climbed it to step-

-the staircase gave out, and I fell, clutching fruitlessly at the edge of the second floor. Who the hell forgot railings? And why did the- wait, did that staircase require locking? Damn you, Sideswipe!

I fell and blacked out.

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><p>"Your unexpected... guest aside," Ratchet declared when I awoke, "you're relatively healthy. A few of your bones broke, but you fell from the human equivalent of a three-storey fall. Just be lucky you're alive, alright?"<p>

Wait? What? Huh?

_It is I. My apologies for taking over your body, but there was no other method to summon help in time. The nanite infusion in your bloodstream provided a base through which I could transfer my consciousness when they came into contact with the Hall of Records._

"There's a voice in my _head_!"

"Yes, there is," Ratchet confirmed, producing a torchlight in his arm. "Can you keep your eyelids open to determine pupil response, or is Scalpel required for assistance?"

"I can keep it, no biggie." I squinted as the light came on. "And the voice?"

_My name is Alpha Trion._

"The voice, as you call it, called for help," Ratchet explained. "Prowl got suspicious when he realised that your spinal cord was severed with your trachea."

"My _trachea_?"

"It's a long story, but Prowl theorises that the resident intelligence of the Iacon Hall of Records managed to transfer some self-repair protocols into the nanite inoculation we provided the team before arrival into Cybertron," Ratchet explained calmly. "What is the mech's designation, Private First Class Zimmerman?"

"Erm, Alpha Trion," I answered.

In answer, Ratchet smashed a hand- servo against the small table that held his tools. It trembled, and a dent was prominent in it.

"I'm calling Prime immediately," Ratchet said, turning to storm out of what I identified as a really large infirmary. "and we'll try to figure out how to get what should be a long-dead mech out. Don't worry, Private."

Don't worry? Don't _worry_?

_There is truly nothing to worry about. I swear upon my name. What is your designation?_

"Nathan... Zimmerman. Just... Who are you? Ratchet said you were long dead."

_My name is Alpha Trion._

"...and that is supposed to mean something to me?"

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><p><em><strong>Critiquez, s'il vous plaît!<strong>_


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